Bills Introduced – 3-17-20

With just the Senate in session this week there were 12 bills introduced yesterday. One of those bills will receive future coverage in this blog:

S 3506 A bill to extend the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Program of the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes. Sen. Lankford, James [R-OK]

It is odd to see this bill introduced when there is already a House passed bill, HR 6160 (an official copy of the bill is now available), available for action. Lankford is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. That would be the Subcommittee ‘responsible’ for the CFATS program, but based upon past work on CFATS I would have expected Chairman Johnson (R,WI) to be the author of an ‘official’ committee bill. We will have to wait a couple of days to see what this bill actually says. I expect that it will be a shorter-term extension; maybe until November?